The Washington Post schets een aangrijpend beeld van de situatie waarin de Oekraïners zich bevinden aan het Donbas front. Het tekort aan wapens en munitie en de (emotionele) uitputting blijven voor mij als indruk achter:
“They [Russians] already know where we are, and when the Ukrainian tank shoots from our side it gives away our position,” said Serhi Lapko, their company commander, recalling the recent battle. “And they start firing back with everything — Grads, mortars.
Onder de Oekraïners die dit te verduren hebben zijn veel vrijwilligers:
The volunteers were civilians before Russia invaded on Feb. 24, and they never expected to be dispatched to one of the most dangerous front lines in eastern Ukraine. They quickly found themselves in the crosshairs of war, feeling abandoned by their military superiors and struggling to survive.
“Our command takes no responsibility,” Lapko said. “They only take credit for our achievements. They give us no support.”
Het onderstaande is duidelijk niet het beeld wat Oekraïne wil uitstralen.
When they could take it no longer, Lapko and his top lieutenant, Vitaliy Khrus, retreated with members of their company this week to a hotel away from the front. There, both men spoke to The Washington Post on the record, knowing they could face a court-martial and time in military prison.
Niet kan worden gezegd hoe algemeen dit beeld is. De ervaring geeft wel een beeld hoe hard het in Donbas toegaat:
The volunteers’ battalion commander, Ihor Kisileichuk, did not respond to calls or written questions from The Post in time for publication, but he sent a terse message late Thursday saying: “Without this commander, the unit protects our land,” in an apparent reference to Lapko. A Ukrainian military spokesman declined immediate comment, saying it would take “days” to provide a response.
De bovenstaande impressie zegt nog niet dat Oekraïne de situatie niet onder controle zou hebben:
“War breaks people down,” said Serhiy Haidai, head of the regional war administration in Luhansk province, acknowledging many volunteers were not properly trained because Ukrainian authorities did not expect Russia to invade. But he maintained that all soldiers are taken care of: “They have enough medical supplies and food. The only thing is there are people that aren’t ready to fight.”
De ervaring wordt echter wel breder herkend:
But Lapko and Khrus’s concerns were echoed recently by a platoon of the 115th Brigade 3rd Battalion, based nearby in the besieged city of Severodonetsk. In a video uploaded to Telegram on May 24, and confirmed as authentic by an aide to Haidai, volunteers said they will no longer fight because they lacked proper weapons, rear support and military leadership.
De Oekraïense legerleiding heeft tegen bovengenoemde personen actie genomen:
Hours after The Post interviewed Lapko and Khrus, members of Ukraine’s military security service arrived at their hotel and detained some of their men, accusing them of desertion.
Het verhaal van de mannen lijkt een spiegel van wat Russische soldaten te noorden van Kyiv vertelden begin maart:
They were given orders to head to the western city of Lviv. When they got there, they were ordered to go south and then east into Luhansk province in Donbas [...]A couple dozen of his men refused to fight, Lapko said, and they were imprisoned.
The ones who stayed were based in the town of Lysychansk. From there, they were dispatched to Toshkivka, a front-line village bordering the separatist areas where the Russian forces were trying to advance. They were surprised when they got the orders.
“When we were coming here, we were told that we were going to be in the third line on defense,” Lapko said. “Instead, we came to the zero line, the front line. We didn’t know where we were going.”
We moeten voorzichtig zijn om het bovenstaande beeld te generaliseren. Het illustreert wel hoe moeilijk de situatie rond Severodonetsk is, waarvan Toshkivka een van de fontlinies vertegenwoordigd die de stad moet verdedigen.
Ofschoon aan het front was de druk in eerste instantie nog wel te weerstaan:
When the volunteers first arrived, their rotations in and out of Toshkivka lasted three or four days. As the war intensified, they stayed for a week minimum, sometimes two. “Food gets delivered every day except for when there are shellings or the situation is bad,” Khrus said.
Die situatie is de laatste tijd slechter geworden:
And in recent weeks, he said, the situation has gotten much worse. When their supply chains were cut off for two days by the bombardment, the men were forced to make do with a potato a day.
They spend most days and nights in trenches dug into the forest on the edges of Toshkivka or inside the basements of abandoned houses. “They have no water, nothing there,” Lapko said. “Only water that I bring them every other day.”
Ook was de militaire sterkte niet in balans:
It’s a miracle the Russians haven’t pushed through their defensive line in Toshkivka, Khrus said as Lapko nodded. Besides their rifles and hand grenades, the only weapons they were given were a handful of rocket-propelled grenades to counter the well-equipped Russian forces.
[...]
The Russians, he said, are deploying tanks, infantry fighting vehicles, Grad rockets and other forms of artillery — when they try to penetrate the forest with ground troops or infantry vehicles, they can easily get close enough “to kill.”
Niet dat de Oekraïners zich niet verweren:
Behind their positions, Ukrainian forces have tanks, artillery and mortars to back Lapko’s men and other units along the front. But when the tanks or mortars are fired, the Russians respond with Grad rockets, often in areas where Lapko’s men are taking cover. In some cases, his troops have found themselves with no artillery support.
Een daar is, ook aan de Oekraïense zijde een stukje WO-I:
This is, in part, because Lapko has not been provided a radio, he said. So there’s no contact with his superiors in Lysychansk, preventing him from calling for help.
Mede het onderstaande illustreert hoe ze uiteindelijk in de desertie situatie terecht zijn gekomen:
Both Lapko and Khrus expect to die at the front. That is why Lapko carries a pistol.
“It’s just a toy against them, but I have it so that if they take me I will shoot myself,” he said.
Voordat we de mannen in dit verhaal eenvoudigweg diskwalificeren:
Despite the hardships, his men have fought courageously, Lapko said. Pointing at Khrus, he declared: “This guy here is a legend, a hero.” Khrus and his platoon, his commander said, have killed more than 50 Russian soldiers in close-up battles.
De eenheid is echter zwaar onderhanden genomen:
The war has taken a heavy toll on his company — as well as on other Ukrainian forces in the area. Two of his men were killed, among 20 fatalities in the battalion as a whole, and “many are wounded and in recovery now,” he said.
Then there are those who are traumatized and have not returned.
“Many got shell shock. I don’t know how to count them,” Lapko said.
Uiteindelijk kwam er een breekpunt:
Lapko and his men have grown increasingly frustrated and disillusioned with their superiors. His request for the awards has not been approved. His battalion commander demanded that he send 20 of his soldiers to another front line, which meant that he couldn’t rotate his men out from Toshkivka. He refused the order.
The final affront arrived last week when he arrived at military headquarters in Lysychansk after two weeks in Toshkivka. His battalion commander and team had moved to another town without informing him, he said, taking food, water and other supplies.
De eenheid heeft echter nog steeds de bereidheid om verder te strijden:
“We’re ready to fight and we will keep on fighting,” Lapko said. “We will protect every meter of our country — but with adequate commandments and without unrealistic orders. I took an oath of allegiance to the Ukrainian people. We’re protecting Ukraine and we won’t let anyone in as long as we’re alive.”
De Oekraïense legerleiding lijkt dit vooralsnog anders te zien:
But on Monday, Ukraine’s military security services arrived at the hotel and took Khrus and other members of his platoon to a detention center for two days, accusing them of desertion. Lapko was stripped of his command, according to an order reviewed by The Post. He is being held at the base in Lysychansk, his future uncertain.
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? De hele NATO flank plus Finland gaan echt niks doen als Putin niet heel naar gaat doen. Aan de andere kant hen je als grote landen Kazachstan, Mongolië en China. Die gaan ook niks doen. Die zijn daar gek.:strip_exif()/u/38542/Scrat1ani.gif?f=community)
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eet wel wat anders dan graan. Zat andere trage koolhydraten. Helaas heeft niet iedereen die luxe... maar in het Italië van Mario over het algemeen toch wel?
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